What's Your Show-Me?

I have a new opening for a YA I am working on (draft #2). Throughout the whole book, astronomy weaves a web--star-crossed lovers, the rings of Saturn, shooting stars. Mystical elements of the cosmos. And my teen heroine says her mother always taught her to wish upon a star.

We've been talking on the blog recently about back story dumping . . . and I was thinking about it. There are some things that tell people a lot about someone--with a single gesture, a single sentence, a single action. As a writer, we look for those things to use in our work.

Though I don't believe you should judge the proverbial book by its cover, there are little quirks about me, or little "show me's" about others that tell a lot. At least in my world where I am always thinking about these things.

Like . . . do you wish upon a star? I still do. All the time. And you are either someone who does, or someone who doesn't. In my YA, I want the mother to be a fragile soul who believed in dreaming, whereas the heroine's father isn't. In fact he is cold and rather cruel at times. He'd never wish upon a star.

I still pick up lucky pennies. So do my kids. And if someone says something bad or talks about death or something horrible happening, I knock wood and insist they "take it back."

Even though long-stemmed red roses are extravagent, I like daisies, lilies of the valley, and I put the dandelions my baby son picks me in a tiny vase that I got as a wedding gift from one of my dearest writer pals. I don't "sometimes" put the dandelions there. Always.

I save my kids' baby teeth, letters to Santa, and notes they write me. I also have the dog collar of my most beloved dog who died a few years ago on the shelf in my office. All of these little "show me's" will tell you that I am sentimental. I've dated men who arrived in Porsches or BMWs and were rude to the waiters and though one even wanted to buy me a fur coat (okay--as an aside here, if you read this blog you would know that was a SURE way to make sure I NEVER wanted to see him again) . . . 99% of the time I never went out with them again. Unsentimental men to a fault. But the electrician who arrived in the rusted and battered blue station wagon and remembered my dog's name (different dog), and who offered to fix the wiring on my father's house, well, him I wanted to see again. Which is not to equate wealth with being bad or manual labor with being good. It's just a gesture of a fur coat says one thing. A gesture of remembering this obnoxious little dog and being willing to help my parents is another.

Most of us have something that . . . well, that's the line in the sand for us. The ONE thing if you discover about someone that will tell you that you likely won't be good friends with them. For me, it's people who talk snidely to children. It's okay to tell me you don't like kids, but be rude to them . . . hmmm. Be rude to a waitress and I'll be downright uncomfortable. I've been that waitress. And I learned more from people's "show me's" than probably anything else I've ever done. I worked at a country club in New York where the members were so God awfully inhuman to the staff, and to all you people who ate there, I can assure you the waitstaff (not me . . . but those waiters know who they are) were spitting in your food. And I can honestly say that the members sort of deserved it (I was a teen at the time--different perspective on life, but even in hindsight, members were abusive in language and demeanor to staff). No, they didn't deserve their food being spit in, but they did deserve a wake-up call as to what it means to be a decent human being.

"Show me's" in my books are the little "tell's." Like in poker. When my father bets big--he has NOTHING. I mean not even a friggin' pair. It's his tell. And since he is blind and can't read this blog, I can reveal that I know it. We're going to have to get cards with BIG, GIANT numbers now . . . I think he will be able make them out. But his tell? It will be the same.

So what "show me's" do you use in life? In your books? Wish upon a star? Pick dandelions? Tell me.